Change may be less extreme than some expected, but may leave some unhappy campers

You don't put desktop in the corner.

That sentiment is at the heart of much of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) faithful’s increasing frustration with Windows 8. Loyal Windows blogger Paul Thurrott went as far as to compare it to the much loathed Windows ME ("Millennium Edition"). Others have been more charitable, praising its strong touch support. And manufacturers seem to be on board with Microsoft's message, at least, showing of a slew of hybrid notebooks and tablets [1][2][3].

When word leaked that Microsoft had snipped out the code that allowed the Start Menu to be re-enabled on the desktop via third-party hacks, many commenters flipped out and let their rage be known. They weren't much happier when they heard that the Aero UI theme found in Windows Vista and Windows 7 desktops would be replaced by a Metro UI alternative. (The current publicly available Release Preview retains the Aero UI theme.)

So how bad (or good) is the new Metro desktop makeover? Judge for yourself from these screenshots from WinUnleaked.

(Click any image to enlarge) [Images Source: WindowsUnleaked]

While there's no real reason to doubt the authenticity of these shots, bear in mind that the leaked OS is a pre-RTM (release to manufacturing/marketing) build. Even the poster "canouna" warns, "Please keep in mind this is not the FINAL theme."

Some people have already (for better or worse) drawn comparisons between the Metro theme and the Windows XP Water Color theme:

[Image Source: "The Rock"/WindowsUnleaked]

Of course, the bad news is that Microsoft appears to be locking the Desktop to Metro UI, though there's faint hope that it might leave in legacy code allowing transparency to be re-enabled. Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) is still running on the test builds, but there's no telling if it will contain the Aero code any more. Microsoft has stated before that Aero wastes battery life and consumes extra processing power versus the cleaner Metro UI, so that may be justification in Microsoft's mind for the switch.

see my other posts above. It's thoroughly explained. It's not just about a server or set of servers. It's the software that the servers run and the software that the users use to run a company. Accounting,shop floor, CRM, inventory, logistics, reverse logistics, supply chain to name a few... All this software is ready for business and supported by staff at MS all in a working Ecosystem. No-one lese does that, no one else has ever even tried.

My point is that when companies like SAP are developing or having an issue THEY can call MS support to get help. Its not one app, or one server, its the entire ecosystem that exists. The entire world runs off MS software. You keep putting up small examples of things, and of course they exist, but that is all tiny pieces of the big picture.

Look, I never said MS Software is non existent in an enterprise. Quite the contrary. Most clients are running Windows desktop OS, and then there are Exchange Servers etc.

But all large corporations are also running UNIX on an enterprise level. In fact, the most popular database right now is Oracle. And the most popular choice of running Oracle is on UNIX variant, whether for warehousing or transaction.

And the software you were talking about are in an ERP system that all large corporations deploy. And part of the ERP is the database that stores the data. Both the DBs (Oracle in my example) or the App Server (SAP in my previous example), run on UNIX.

From what I have seen, the smaller companies with limited IT budget, tend to deploy an MS only environment.

So my original point - UNIX variant is very much in the enterprise ecosystem that runs all those software you are talking about.

And as I previously said, I have yet to see any large company that only runs MS. Lets not consider MS here, though at one point (if I remember correctly), they were running Linux or Unix (cant remember what) for their Website.

Agreed... I didnt mean to imply that MS runs everything at every company, but linux/unix aren't anything close to the full package. They are reliable servers and way better than MS for large enterprises with large DB's, but it's only a part of the big picture. MS is the only one that does it all, and no-one else is even remotely close. There isnt even a distant second place, there is no-one else at all.

One point you mentioned, or someone else did (too lazy to now check - brooding on my tea now), is that MS setup is way easier to manage. It does bring down the TCO. I have been recommending Windows R2 + MS SQL to customers myself. They have got quite reliable, and I am expecting them to catch up with UNIX level reliability in the near future.

The above comment in my circle generally starts another debate (you probably faced this as well), that a proper system admin should be knowing UNIX maintenance and a company should invest in IT, blah blah. What they don't realize is that medium sized companies do not want to invest too much in an IT department (talking only personnel here).

Plus any System Admin worth his salt, should also be able to properly maintain secure and reliable Win servers. Just that large enterprises tend to have a mixed environment. Mostly because they grow from small to large, and over time their systems become diverse.